Archives by Tag 'conditioning'

Larry Stoegbauer, the strength coach for swimmers at New Trier High School in Winnetka, Illinois, has put together a drill that allows the coach and the swimmer to measure the progress and improvement in building strength and power for swimming.

The Weight Strap Drill

The swimmer places a belt around his or her waist connected to a strap approximately the length of the pool with a bar bell weight of between 10 to 95 lbs. attached. The weight is placed in the deep end of the pool and the strap is curled around a backstroke start handle and out to the swimmer. The swimmer then sprints to the other end of the pool towing the weight across the pool bottom to the starting block. As the swimmer gains strength, the weight is increased.

Tim McClellan (M.S. CSCS) has coached Olympic medalists and NCAA All-Americans and here he guides you through a warm-up. This is designed to effectively activate the nervous system, lubricate joints, quicken the feet, and prepare the body for explosive movements. McClellan uses the agility ladder, hops, and jumps to progress through a dynamic warm-up.

Neurological Warm-Up

Drills include crossovers, hopscotch, side-to-side hops, in-and-outs and many more.

Terry Layton has over 300 wins on the college, junior college, and high school levels. Coach Layton has also racked up 300 coaching wins at the international level. Here, Layton will show you the ‘Six Ball Shooting Drill’ which can act as a conditioning exercise for your perimeter players. The drill simulates sprinting the floor, catching in transition, and scoring.

Six Ball Shooting Drill

Athlete Movements: This would mimic a scenario where the defense turns over the offense and they are shooting quickly in the conversion from defense to offense. There are three kinds of shots in the drill: 1) Catch and shoot mid-range 2) Catch midrange, shot fake, and pull up 3) Catch and shoot behind the 3-point line. There is also emphasis on the passers in this drill. The passers must deliver the ball right where the shooter wants it, inside the shooting pocket.

Teaching Points:

1) Run the floor hard
2) Catch & Be ready to shoot
3) Good passes
4) Work on shot fakes and scoring off the dribble

Rob Rose of True Athlete Performance shares the tools you need to better evaluate your players’ performance with tests that isolate specific abilities. This drill is a way to measure the agility and speed of players. It can be used especially with offensive players to develop their ability to move quickly and change direction in order to create space or dodge a defender.

Roundabout Drill

How it Works: This drill utilizes four cones; two for the start, one five yards up and five yards over, and a fourth, five yards over and five yards back, so that you end with a triangle shape. The athlete begins at the two cones. The timing begins upon the athletes’ first forward movement. They sprint to and around the middle cone, sprint to and around the far cone, from an inside-out direction. They sprint back around the top-middle cone and then finish by running back between the two starting line cones.

Drill Tips: For testing an athlete’s time, only one set up would be needed. But for training purposes, you could run the drill with several setups at the same time so that your entire team could have multiple reps in a short amount of time.

The Duke University Men’s Lacrosse coaching staff runs their players through a ‘Turn & Sprint Drill.’ This exercise focuses on training players to open up their hips to a direction behind them and “fire off” a line out of a static position. Players will become more confident in their skills to stay with or slide to their opponent.

Turn & Sprint Drill

This involves setting up cones 10 yards apart in a line that is also 10 yards infield from a sideline. As the player is positioned on the sideline between two of the cones, a coach will communicate to the player to go left or right.